1. Technical Field
The present invention generally relates to a container useful for storing and transporting items such as food and, more particularly, to a container including a bowl and selectively detachable lid including a rigid tab to assist in selectively detaching the lid from the bowl.
2. Description of the State of the Art
Containers, particularly those used for reheating foodstuffs in a microwave oven generally should be relatively low in cost and easy to utilize. Additionally, such containers should be versatile to use, that is, capable of withstanding drastically different environments such as occurs when transferring the container directly from the refrigerator or freezer to a microwave oven, for example.
With regard to these microwavable containers, a primary focus in the art has been on providing a good seal between the lid and the bowl. However, many of the known sealable microwave containers are considered unnecessarily complicated with regard to the sealing assembly. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,377,860 requires a specifically shaped double seal arrangement along opposing sides of the sealing rim. According to this reference, the base and the lid both require an inwardly disposed tapering frusto-conical seal area and a downwardly and outwardly extending brim with mating undercuts. While a high integrity seal is accomplished, it is believed that unnecessarily high separation forces would be required to detach the lid from the bowl. This, in turn, makes such containers more prone to spills which is highly undesirable.
The art has in large part failed to consider how the structure of the tab members, particularly when taken in conjunction with the sealing assembly, affects the magnitude of the separation forces required to detach the lid from the bowl. Heretofore, resilient microwavable containers have generally included relatively flimsy tab members (when a tab member is present) which bend at the point of attachment to the lid and thus require unnecessarily high separation forces to detach the lid from the bowl.